When it comes to American theater, there is one man to whom attention must be paid.

Since the 1960s, director Mike Nichols been steady presence on Broadway, winning eight Tony awards for eight of his productions. And his latest, a revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” is likely to win him at least one more.

Since it opened in March, “Salesman” has become one of the most talked about plays on Broadway this season, achieving financial as well as critical success. The producers announced this month that the production had recouped its $3.1 million capitalization, just 14 weeks in, and that it will turn a profit before its close on June 2. The show, which stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Linda Emond, and Andrew Garfield, has benefited from premium ticket pricing and a nearly sold-out run.

At 80, Mr. Nichols comes to “Salesman” after a storied and lengthy career directing and producing both theater and film. Mr. Nichols is one of only eleven people to have won the four major annual American entertainment awards, the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (sometimes abbreviated as EGOT).

Mr. Nichols began on Broadway in the early 1960s with “Barefoot in the Park” and “The Odd Couple,” and later segued into musicals with “Spamalot.” In Hollywood, he achieved success when he directed “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The Graduate.”

The Journal spoke with Mr. Nichols about his career and the process of bringing “Salesman” back to Broadway.

What drew you to this play in particular? Was it love at first sight?

The things that you saw earlier in your life generally have more power than the things you saw last week. I saw [Salesman] early in my life, when I was just 18. My girlfriend’s mother bought us tickets. And in terms of the play that I ended up doing, I was lucky that I didn’t see the play at its best. Lee Cobb starred in the show for just a few months so I saw it with Thomas Mitchell as Willy Loman instead. In a way, that was a protection that allowed me to direct the play later. When I saw “[A] Streetcar [Named Desire],” also thanks to the mother of this girlfriend, we saw it on the second night. We were completely poleaxed. We didn’t talk. We didn’t get up. We didn’t pee.

If “Streetcar” moved you so much, why didn’t you direct that play rather than “Salesman?”

Well, there aren’t Blanches anymore. And you can’t argue that “Streetcar” is more about today than it was about then. With “Salesman,” you can certainly argue that it’s more relevant today than it’s ever been. That’s one reason that I would come back to the play in my head every few years—because this play has moved more and more toward the center of American theater. Oddly, I didn’t have to see the play to realize that. If you have job and you circle a play as something that you might direct someday, you don’t need to see other productions to inspire you. By definition, they’re not about where you are in the play.

If you were thinking about directing the play for all those decades, what led you to take on the project now?

Well, Arthur Miller was a friend and neighbor in Connecticut for many years. I’ve known his daughter since she was two or three years old—she was the one who allowed us to do the play. But the really decisive thing was that I worked with Philip Seymour Hoffman twice before and of course loved working with him. We became friends and I kept thinking of Willy as Phil’s part. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. When I saw Phil in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” I had to put two handkerchiefs in my mouth to keep from making noise—that’s how much he got to me. Not too much later, I asked him, how would you feel about us doing “Salesman” together? He said, “Not yet.” I let him think about it for quite a long time, and he said yes eventually. Well, more precisely he said: “I just might as well as accept it.” He knew the part of Willy was waiting for him.

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Mike Nichols and his wife Diane Sawyer on December 3, 2011 in Washington, D.C.

How was working with Mr. Hoffman? Did he exceed your expectations?

Phil is a kind of miracle. That’s the best way to put it. Everything he has, it all goes toward the part. Nothing is wasted on vanity: he never says I’d like a better dressing room, or I wish you didn’t say that to me. He’s a very calm, happy person. He’s what people call “grounded.” He has an enviable sense of proportion. He’s in his own life and then, suddenly, becomes somebody else on stage.

Some critics have suggested that Mr. Hoffman is too young to play the part of Willy Loman. Did that ever come up during rehearsals?

So many people worry about the age issue, but my question is what about the other half of the play—the flashbacks—that revolve around a man in his middle 40s? The character of Willy Loman is two ages. Given that, I think it’s a perfect part for him. And if he has to be one of the two ages, why not the younger age? A guy in his 40s like Phil can become 60 and not destroy himself. But very few 60 year old men, even actors, can get through a production pretending to be 40 half the time and survive. It’s not an easy play to get through physically, by the way. It’s grueling. You have to be in fantastic shape.

It looks grueling on stage—the actors’ muscles really stand out.

One of my great joys in this production is that the actors are genuine athletes—they talk about their athleticism in the play, too. I’ve always thought those parts should be played by athletes because this is a family of men meant for physical labor.

What was the process of bringing this show to Broadway?

We did a workshop, and then we went away for three and a half months. The show changed a lot during those quiescent months. It was shockingly advanced when we came back. Everything just gets simplified. The actors realized, wait, “I don’t have to make this face.” It’s a little like, “I’m used to killing babies in this scene, but maybe I should just say hello,” or maybe we should cut the pirouette with the finger up your butt and just have you say the line. Maybe simpler is better.

Was taking three months off intentional?

Yes, that was one of the things that I wanted from the beginning. With “The Odd Couple,” we took it to three cities—you used to have more time to work on the whole thing. Now previews start after a few weeks, and pretty soon you can’t rehearse at all with matinee days. I knew we needed time and that this was the only way we could get it.

Did you do any particular acting exercises in the workshop?

One day, I gave Andrew and Finn [the actors playing Willy Loman’s sons] and Phil a football. They were still holding their script pages. I just handed them a football. They immediately started passing it while turning their pages. Phil and Andrew started throwing it over Finn’s head. He leapt higher and higher to get it. I thought, there’s the father-son relationship. There is the boys’ whole childhood. The fact that they could do that with the ball confirmed for me that they were so much the right guys for the parts and the play.

The reviews have been overwhelming positive in general, but there are some critical notes. Have any surprised you?

I don’t expect anything from reviews. Sometimes I am bemused by them. Ben Brantley is an intelligent man but our taste differs violently. When he loves something, I think ‘I must be sure not to see it.’ When he attacks something, I think, ‘Oh! I must find out more about it.” That’s how differently we see the world. When we talk about reviews, what we are really talking about is just a market report—it’s like reading about the new Lexus. You have to know what the guy writing the review cares about to understand his take. Does he like sports cars or does he like Bentleys?

When you cast Andrew Garfield as Willy Loman’s son, Biff, did you worry that his role in the upcoming Spiderman film would negatively affect the show, or take him out of context for an audience?

No, that film had nothing to do with the play. I mentioned “Spiderman” once in all the months we’ve been together. When I did, Andrew looked at me, shocked, and said: “You said that word. We don’t say that word here.” He is so exactly right for Biff in so many ways.

Would you ever direct a movie adaptation of “Salesman?”

No, the play never works on screen. It doesn’t work because it isn’t real. The family isn’t real. They are metaphors. They aren’t even speaking the way that real people talk. They are speaking ‘emergency speak.’ It’s not prose, and it’s not poetry either. “Attention, attention must finally be paid”—that’s not a mother talking, it’s emergency speak. And it’s why people quote that line all the time.

Toward the end of the play, there’s a moment when Willy’s wife Linda confesses she can’t cry. Are we meant to identify with her or not?

One does identify with Linda because when you love someone completely you have no choice but to take the whole package. When you think about the people who love you completely, you think—“you love me and you know all about me, yuck! How could you.” That’s the dilemma expressed in Linda. She also does something very rare in loving Willy, because she loves him more than her children. It reminds one of certain famous couples.

You chose to reproduce both the original scenic design by Jo Mielziner and music by Alex North that were created for Elia Kazan’s 1949 premiere of “Death of a Salesman.” Why did you make those choices?

Well, I did make changes. But it’s important, when doing any production, to return to the impulse, to examine it, and then you can change it. I think there’s an obligation to understand how something began. In the case of “Salesman,” Miller said the setting was inside Willy Loman’s skull. How can you not pay attention to that and to the show’s beginnings? What I found out when we were on the [original configuration] of the set was that the set really helps you, it shows you where the characters are in certain ways. But I did change a lot. I changed the actual set, too. In the original production, there is a basement. There are two bathrooms. I changed the approach to some characters, too. Ben [Willy Loman’s brother] was never an actual explorer in a safari jacket. He was a rich guy. The woman from Boston was never specifically a lost soul.

Has the audience’s reaction surprised you in any way?

Just how overwhelmed and connected they are. So many things the play examines have grown beyond any imagining. I think that’s why the play resonates so strongly today. The wish to be known, Facebook, Tocqueville’s prediction in 1840 that we would all become pure market forces —so many things embedded in the writing of “Death of a Salesman” have become truer and truer over time. In some inexplicable way, the play is at the heart of our country today.

That’s a big proclamation. What’s the most important aspect of the play to you?

Miller initiated something on stage that I was thinking about this morning with my trainer on the treadmill. He allows us to be in many places at the same time. We’re in the kitchen, but we’re also in the men’s room at a restaurant. Before this play, there was nothing in theater that enabled the audience to be in two or three places at the same time. That’s my favorite thing about “Salesman;” it’s about how we live in numerous places in the past at the same time that we live in the present. It’s the most beautiful expression of that idea I’ve ever seen in a play.

What’s next for you?

I have spoken with some people about a television series. But I am really confused. This has been an unusual experience—I’m just not sure what comes next. I’ve done two things in my life where I’ve been happy every day, where I loved going to work: this, and “Angels in America.” In both cases, I forgot people would actually see the thing. People seeing it was a real shock. So I need to take some time before I figure out what I might do next.

You’ve been directing theater for decades. How has the Broadway landscape changed?

Production costs have grown enormously. It got more and more expensive to do a play just as it got more expensive to go to a restaurant or rent an apartment. When you have people who spend $12 million on a show, though, and you can’t understand where it went—well, a huge difference, seeing that happen today.

Do you think theater is eroding? Or giving way to other forms of entertainment?

We are being entertained all the time—in the bathroom, on the train, in our beds. Sure, there is a smaller audience for theater. But we know from radio that entertainment never goes away, it just changes. And more power to it.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.